Background: Harry Potter taught me how to read, literally. I grew up with the books and the movies; the characters and actors were always my age. I graduated high school when the last book came out and graduated college when the last movie came out. When the release date for the Deathly Hallows book came out, my friends and I printed and posted announcement flyers around our school. Even when I started working, I personally sorted everyone in the building using the Pottermore quiz. That might give you an idea of the fan I was and what Harry Potter has meant to my life.
So, it should be no surprise that a lot of people reached out this week asking me my thoughts on the new trailer for the HBO Harry Potter TV series. I have thoughts—thoughts about design, and new actors, and included scenes. But I haven’t been able to actually think about them. Because more than anything, seeing all the clips, GIFs, and thoughts on my streams has just made me feel strange. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew why the excitement wasn’t there. I am a part of the queer community. I know the harm the original author has been doing with her rhetoric and her money. It has mostly been targeted at the transgender community. But last year, on International Asexuality Day, the author posted insulting misinformation about my very specific part of the queer community. I wrote about it then, and you can read about it here.
But while I understood the lack of excitement, I still couldn’t label how I was actually feeling. It was a friend who put it into words. “It’s grief,” she said. “You are still grieving.” And she was right. It’s been seven years since the world seemed to shift under the feet of an incredibly loving and embracing fandom, and one year since someone who meant so much to me broke my heart completely. And yet, I’m still grieving. I don’t know what step I’m at, but I know it’s not acceptance yet. Too much of my memory, my personality (the fact that I am now a writer) is tied up in a world that we found out too late was created by someone who, in reality, wasn’t who we thought she was.
I still know my house and what type of wand I would have. When I feel out if someone is still willing to engage in this type of conversation, I do like to ask what house they are in. I still own my books, my memorabilia, and old tickets from midnight showings and midnight book parties. I will keep them because of the times and people they remind me of. I will ask people’s houses and favorite books because I know people like me: we are the majority. The fandom is where I belong. Because in 2020, different fan sites started raising money for transgender rights. It reminds me that, despite everything, I’ve been in the right place. I just still don’t know how to process having to separate the art from the artist. It’s not a clean rip. Things are tangled in a knot, and I’m still untying that. And the new trailer brought that ugly knot forward again and reminded me there is still a lot of work to do.